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Let’s rewind back to the ‘summer’ months of London 2012 and reminisce of the glorious weather it brought us Brits… For starters, it was recorded as the wettest summer since 1917, and then all hopes of sunbathing in Hyde Park or a trip to Brighton were dashed by the measly mean UK temperature of 13.9 °C – the coolest summer we’ve had since 1998! My 2012 ‘summer’ wardrobe consisted of jumpers, jeans, and if VERY LUCKY, maybe even a t-shirt without a cardigan!

Fast forward to the London summer months of 2013 and its a whole new story. The heatwave that gripped us from the start of July has held on into August, I like to think that’s the weather saying ‘sorry about the shit summer we gave you last year, we feel kinda bad about all that flooding and ruining the Queen’s Jubilee, so we’ve decided to let you all have a hot and sunny summer’. This was very nice of the weather, but a heatwave that causes problems with my wardrobe? Not so nice.

In this perpetual 28-32°C weather I have found my new best friend that keeps me cool and un-sweaty in this city heat – the playsuit.

I used to think playsuit’s looked silly and that it was odd that women wanted to wear a child’s outfit. It wasn’t until a few years back that I tried one on in Urban Outfitters and decided that for a shorty like me (I nearly reach the great height of 5ft), that these short, silky little things did wonders for my little legs and added instant sex appeal through the short hem, silk and pattern.

I’m not a huge fan of Aztec prints, but on this Urban Outfitters playsuit (below), works perfectly. With the cream base and pink patterns toning down the bold Aztec style pattern it stands out from the regular heavy black, yellow or red typical Aztec prints seen on the high street.

As the playsuit’s pattern does all the talking for the outfit, I think its better to tone down when it comes to accessories. Wearing a delicate necklace helps to balance the loud design of the playsuit, seen in the picture below, choosing to wear my favourite Dogeared gold star necklace.

Silky printed playsuit = solution to keeping cool in the hot weather.

For all you lucky regular sized people out there, a pair of ballet pumps or flats or even a nice pair of sandals will do the trick to making your legs look lovely and long. As you can see in the photo above I opted for a pair of wedges which instantly flattered my little legs. However, as I soon sorely found out, wedges and cobbled stones DO NOT MIX.

Another playsuit I added to my ever growing collection is much more understated, being black in colour with a minimal print to it. In this case I added a statement necklace that complemented the colours of the pattern on the playsuit (dark pink and blue).

I also found that with nearly every playsuit you don’t have to stick with jewellery to add to the look, in fact I found that adding a belt complements both the outfit and emphasizes your waist at the same time – two birds, one stone!

This outfit (although not properly seen in the photo) has kept the sweat at bay in clubs or on holiday.

Keeping cool on holiday in the Italian heat – picture taken in the beautiful Florence.

Urban Outiftters may be a little on the pricey side, but the sale always comes up tops and is well worth checking out instore. My favourite alternative if I’m not up to splashing out on £38 or more for one item is to trawl Ebay, where I’ve already found two beautiful swallow printed playsuits in a lovely light blue colour or in cream.

Wanting something to emphasize that itty bitty waist, or maybe to simply make the playsuit more fitted? Try out a belt like this (I have one like this, but with a pink-y nude belt strap instead of black), the gold bar on the front of the belt will make it easy to accessorize with jewellery and also gives it a more sophisticated look: